Suburban
TWO residents’ associations in Harare have urged the City of Harare to urgently address its shambolic billing system in order to increase revenue collection and provide ratepayers with uninterrupted services.
In view of the unending water shortages in the city, the Harare Residents Trust (HRT) and the Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA) have in separate statements urged the municipality to attend to a number of issues, chief among them, billing in order to revive services in the capital city.
One of the major reasons the City of Harare is struggling to provide services is incapacitation arising from its failure to collect the desired levels of revenue to fund services.
In his State of the City Address (SOCA), Harare Mayor Councillor Jacob Mafume said the city’s revenue collection remains less than 50 percent of its potential which is quite a huge deficit.
Cllr Mafume said as at June 2022, council had collected ZWL$15.054 billion inclusive of the legacy debt brought forward to 2022. The municipality had budgeted to collect ZWL$28.875 billion by June.
In its statement, the HRT said one way the city could increase its revenue collection was fixing the shambolic billing system among other remedies.
It also urged the municipality to resume monthly water meter readings and charge residents for actual water consumption and consistent garbage collection to ensure sustained revenues into its coffers.
HRT further advised the City of Harare to take full control of City Parking, be accountable and transparent on the council farms, Harare Quarry and procurement of goods and services.
In its own statement, CHRA said the revenue deficit has dire consequences on the local authority’s ability to provide water to the residents especially in a hyper inflationary environment. CHRA urged residents of Harare who are receiving water supplies to pay for the water services provided in order to ensure financial sustainability for the local authority to provide water.
To cut on the cost of water treatment chemicals and the amount of chemicals needed to purify water, CHRA said all stakeholders in the capital must ensure wetlands are protected as they are a natural way of purifying water.
The residents’ body also urged the City of Harare to fix its billing system and make it online to ensure when payments are made, the balances should reflect in real time. CHRA said the platform that will house the billing system must not be prone to manipulation as witnessed in the past to encourage residents to pay their bills.
It also suggested the need for the City of Harare to explore alternative power sources such as solar energy for water purification and water treatment plants in order to cut its energy consumption costs.
